Crump Life President Says Buying Life Settlements Gives Crump ‘Center of Expertise’

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January 12, 2010 Tuesday 02:55 PM EST

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Crump Life President Says Buying Life Settlements Gives Crump 'Center of Expertise'

Jesse A Hamilton

CLEVELAND

Crump Life Insurance Services has completed an assets purchase of Life Settlements Inc., a Cleveland-based firm whose employees and operations will now host Crump's "center of expertise for life settlement-type transactions," said Brian Winikoff, president of Crump Life.

The deal combines "their very strong settlement platform with our strong and wide-ranging client base," Winikoff said. "We think we can take their expertise to our clients and really grow the platform significantly."

Details of the purchase were not disclosed, though Life Settlements' assets were acquired with an up-front cash payment to be followed by further payment "based on the performance of the business," Winikoff said.

Crump Life, which calls itself the largest independent wholesale distributor of life insurance in the United States in a comparison of 2008 wholesale premium volume, is a subsidiary of Crump Group Inc., which also includes a commercial insurance brokerage and retirement plan administrator. The group is headquartered in Roseland, N.J.

Life Settlements had about 10 employees, according to Crump, and will be bolstered with existing life settlements staff already within the company. The process to bring them together has begun, the company said, and Life Settlements' Web site has already been updated to reflect Crump ownership during the transition.

The strategy, Winikoff explained, is to have a single center of subject-matter expertise "to help our brokerage offices execute on specific types of transactions." The company already has such centers serving its brokers for other lines of business.

Crump Group was formed when Crump Insurance Services Inc. -- a wholesale property/casualty broker -- was combined with BISYS Commercial Insurance Services -- whose commercial property/casualty operations was consolidated with Crump on July 1, 2008. The group's life operation already includes a number of subsidiary companies: Time Financial Services, LifeSource, the Potomac Group and Hanleigh. Life Settlements now joins that list.

"We think it's a good transaction," Winikoff said. "We're really excited about it, and we think it'll be a good success in the future."

(Jesse A. Hamilton, Washington bureau manager: [email protected])

January 13, 2010

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